tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post5182868003160358444..comments2016-12-09T11:47:52.410-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Beat the ClockZephirinenoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-6702159540828752822012-03-22T01:23:58.253-07:002012-03-22T01:23:58.253-07:00Ed, in this operation, there were three separate c...Ed, in this operation, there were three separate crews of hard hats, with up to eight men per crew, each crew executing a different phase of the project; specialization the name of the game here, all very rough &amp; ready; one thought of those wildcatters who cap oil fires for a living; this is a company that owns and manages (and of course sells, and sets the prices for) the power of ten million people, pretty much as it sees fit; at one point in the perilous third stage, sparks flew, and flames shot out much as St Elmo&#39;s fire around the broken main mast... all very trying to observe and doubtless the pricetag (including hazard-pay) on the day ran up into the six figures. Of course we will be the ones paying, so I suppose the explosive moment would be filed under the category of &quot;getting your money&#39;s worth&quot;(?).TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42431329748188645442012-03-21T08:41:44.352-07:002012-03-21T08:41:44.352-07:00well &amp;
to re:act
&amp;
where to begin
I just...well &amp;<br />to re:act<br /><br />&amp;<br />where to begin<br /><br />I just don&#39;t know:<br />from moment to moment<br /><br />is (my) reality.<br /><br />the Power Company <br />hired contractors to<br />do same thing hearer....<br /><br />new utility poles<br />replaced the raggedy #8 copper wires<br /><br />(which conducted electricity at about 88.88 % efficiency<br /><br />with<br />big-fat-ALUMINUM <br /><br />c a b l e s that<br /><br />(I looked it up in my<br />1962 National Electric Code)<br /><br />are about 63.762 % efficient..!<br /><br />I&#39;m watching the clock<br />waiting for my next PEPCO bill should <br />be now that they put in a &quot;Smart Meter&quot;<br /><br />maybe two time higher than the last bill<br /><br /><br />not to mention<br />that a guy in the bucket <br />hit a wire<br />which sparked<br />which caught that old oak<br />to catch fire<br />which burned out the squirrels&#39; nests<br />who where just squirreling around and multiplying things time and time again<br />sort uve<br /><br />triangularily<br /><br />another Ishtar symbol of fecundity ?Ed Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20174994580254286622012-03-21T04:24:34.777-07:002012-03-21T04:24:34.777-07:00Oy, what a day, the high-risk wildcatters on the h...Oy, what a day, the high-risk wildcatters on the high-wire grid, the mast-size power poles going down and up like the rigging in a storm at sea in a Patrick O&#39;Brien novel!<br /><br />The vast new pole came in a sheath-like metal tube that brought to mind those vintage Nike missiles.<br /><br />The last one of those I saw with my own eyes was the central town monument in a windswept ghost town on the High Plains called Boone, Colorado. I was passing through to do a story on a government project to develop wind turbines at the Federal Train Test Center. Or was it high speed bullet trains, or yes, both. Two interesting technologies which of course came to nought because shortly thereafter the mini-&quot;Energy Crisis&quot; was over, the price of gas went down and the Empire rumbled on. <br /><br />Curtis, your discreet hint reminds me that even as the power pole missile launcher was being gantried into place, and the guys in hard hats were trampling upon my companion&#39;s five tender daffodils, it came to me that I had half-apologetically smothered my own poem in a sea of overkill, exhibiting once again a salient failing. (See comment on previous post.)<br /><br />And it was too late to massacre my own prize blossoms in Edit because the power was gone!<br /><br />Not that this should be accepted as exculpatory, I do think the spasm of excessiveness had been perhaps a Beat the Clock-ish sort of manouevre, however. <br /><br />Carpe diem, before the power goes out and/or surges on, the modem crashes again and the blog foolery implodes forever.<br /><br />(No such luck though.)<br /><br />Twelve hours of insomniac noise-polluted meditation later, one was reduced to cursing the ghost of Thomas Edison.<br /><br />Imaginary North Woods, where are you now that I need you most??!!<br /><br /><br />Vassilis, you&#39;ve got to know they&#39;d spent all week practising that plunger trick at Fort Slocum.<br /><br />In a way the naïveté is (almost) charming, not least the way they shoehorn a Sylvania ad in at the drop of a beachball.TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85623842205292471482012-03-21T02:58:48.015-07:002012-03-21T02:58:48.015-07:00I can&#39;t decide if the beautiful moving poem ge...I can&#39;t decide if the beautiful moving poem gets smothered by the pictures and other texts or just lives among them in its proper place in the time/space jumble. In any event, this is quite a remarkable piece for greeting the day. I&#39;d like to go back to bed and have a dream about it. CurtisACravanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84497435194818864802012-03-21T00:12:33.914-07:002012-03-21T00:12:33.914-07:00I don&#39;t need two plungers--I took the plunge w...I don&#39;t need two plungers--I took the plunge without them, thanks to your intriguing post and poem.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89673748138628007952012-03-20T19:51:54.079-07:002012-03-20T19:51:54.079-07:00The TV gameshow from which this post derives its t...The TV gameshow from which this post derives its title (see link above) was a familiar feature of the early 50s cultural set. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Not quite the Epic of Gilgamesh, but hey, the history we have, however tacky and idiotic it is, remains all we&#39;ve got. Said the permanently bewildered test subject.<br /><br />Nin, I&#39;m as mystified as you are. Possibly even more. So many logs bumping and bobbing in the Time River. You can&#39;t go home again, I remember Thomas Wolfe having warned us long ago. The public library stocked all his books. I recall being impressed by the fact that, being tall, he wrote them all by using the top of a refrigerator as a writing desk. That impressed and depressed me at the same time. Our refrigerator had a serpentine nest of metal coils on top. Had Thomas Wolfe owned our refrigrator, wuld he even have WANTED to go home again? <br /><br />We&#39;ve just had a twelve-hour utilities company operation out front, vast gantry crane and rigging outfits, removal and replacement of power poles, all somewhat hairy. Power outage. Re-programming. Confusion, mystification, no sleep. What century is it again??<br /><br />The source text on Ishtar/Inanna&#39;s descent to the underworld has her holding <a href="http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.4.1#" rel="nofollow">a lapis lazuli measuring ring and golden rod</a>. A coil of measuring string and a yardstick? A staff and a chaplet of beads? It is elsewhere contended she holds a shepherd&#39;s crook and noserope. Others argue in reply that there&#39;s no rope. <br /><br />Representations differ. Circumstances alter cases. Sometimes she&#39;s depicted holding a scimitar. Uh-oh. In some representations she wears an eight-pointed-star zodiac belt. <br /><br />In any case there&#39;s no disputing the fact she&#39;s a formidable figure. Not that Kali or Atropos are exactly pushovers, either.TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-86496428216508944012012-03-20T19:45:21.312-07:002012-03-20T19:45:21.312-07:00Ishtar and Easter - I didn&#39;t get the connecti...Ishtar and Easter - I didn&#39;t get the connection at first<br /><br />These old gods were pretty terrifyingdalriada9http://www.blogger.com/profile/08508765523188135182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36937705844065506142012-03-20T15:04:52.992-07:002012-03-20T15:04:52.992-07:00I have been busily unpacking my mother&#39;s life ...I have been busily unpacking my mother&#39;s life these last few days--and in it a few odd clocks and an antique barometer and lots of books in Ancient Greek and things I have no clue as to what they are--fragments of time, her time, and reading this, and looking at clock that only works if it is flat on the table and wondering about the barometer which somehow needs to be re-inked, a process I remember my father enjoying but taking forever to do . . .<br />I am puzzled at what any of it is for, or what it means, and why anything and whatever--and I do have to say, it is all mystifying, no matter what kind of grammar of substance or logic one applies. <br /><br />Time is completely baffling to me.Nin Andrewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-77449376293187231052012-03-20T14:35:20.455-07:002012-03-20T14:35:20.455-07:00&quot;Paving the roads of deep space with
A soft b...&quot;Paving the roads of deep space with<br />A soft blue dust<br />Left by the memory of light&quot; sounds so cosmic but coooooooooooold<br /><br />I beat the alarm clock this morning:<br /><br /><br /><br />Captivated<br /><br />frozen at<br />the well’s<br />stone lip<br /><br />in<br />sudden<br />song<br /><br /><br /><br />Spring it is but seems to be prematurely bursting buds heredalriada9http://www.blogger.com/profile/08508765523188135182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88418637560101183492012-03-20T08:45:29.271-07:002012-03-20T08:45:29.271-07:00“A simple snip and nothing remains but
Time
Pavin...“A simple snip and nothing remains but<br />Time <br />Paving the roads of deep space with<br />A soft blue dust<br />Left by the memory of light”<br /><br />Exhilarating, this. <br /><br />I’m curious about Ishtar’s weapon: in one picture it resembles a rope loop (the thread of life?), and reminds me of an ouroboros (the life circling back on itself?). In another pic it looks like a caduceus, only the snakes’ heads are looking outward. I need time to research this.<br /><br />From a sundial dating to Medieval Spain: Vulnerant omnia, ultima necat. (The hours): all of them wound, the last one kills.Hazenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-32572371506033967692012-03-20T06:09:04.042-07:002012-03-20T06:09:04.042-07:00Dude, just Take these two plungers from Madeleine ...Dude, just <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTi_17q3q1U" rel="nofollow">Take these two plungers from Madeleine</a> and call me in an hour.TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com